1. Field
This invention relates to golf swing training, generally, a device used by a player to train for a game or sport using a tangible projectile, the invention specifically stretches the parts of the body used for the backswing and follow-thru, strengthens the muscles used for the downswing and is a teaching aid to correct many swing flaws.
2. Prior Art
Golf training through exercise is a comparatively new field for such an old game. Up until the last 20 years or so golfers generally avoided most physical training exercises for fear of losing their swing from physical body changes. As training techniques have progressed, golfers have worked more on physical fitness and golf specific muscles.
Although there have been some golf swing casualties in the professional ranks from body changes due to physical workouts, younger pros have achieved more promising results. Up until the present time, stretching and strengthening golf muscles has been achieved by improving overall physical fitness and using specific exercises for golf muscle groups.
Spending so much time exercising is a noble goal for those who have the time like the pros, but working amateurs with families cannot usually find the time. Many training aids have been developed that have not been widely accepted. Others, that have been widely sold, rarely fulfill their advertised claims. Some current exercise training products involve a belt around the torso with an elastic cord attached to the club handle. Although they claim to stretch and strengthen the golf swing, these products usually do the opposite. They provide resistance on the backswing and follow-thru where stretching is actually required and elastic pulling on the downswing where resistance is required.
Other golf training products that haven't made it to market include the use of pivotal resistance with the resistance mechanism in front of the golfer and some form of arm to rotate by the golfer for exercising the swing such as Lee and Leadbetter in U.S. Pat. No. 5,284,464 and Hundley in U.S. Pat. No. 5,242,344. These are very rigid devices for swing training and often resist backswing motion where pull is actually required. Also, a golfer's backswing and downswing is normally on different swing planes and swing circumferences have odd shapes that are not rigid. The prior devices do not accommodate such variations in golf swings and can create problems associated with undesirable swing alterations.
Other devices employ vertical resistance through pulleys, guides, weights and springs to offer resistance for a portion of the downswing such as Bickford in U.S. Pat. No. 3,966,203, Masters in U.S. Pat. No. 4,229,002 and Kim in U.S. Pat. No. 6,537,184. U.S. Pat. No. 6,537,184 offers some origin movement using a sliding pulley on a trolley connected to springs, but offers no real improvement over the other inventions, particularly since pulleys do not work on such angles, especially when resistance is decreased and increased. Also, the club never gets close to the top of the backswing and the club handle is pointed away from the golfer at the so-called top causing the wrists to start down without being cocked. Just like U.S. Pat. No. 3,955,203 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,229,002, U.S. Pat. No. 6,537,184 fails to solve the problem of providing resistance for the whole downswing or even accommodating the whole backswing and downswing. Of course stretching in these devices isn't even addressed.
Still other devices involve railed or guided golf swing planes, which force the golfer to swing on some predetermined swing path. Hurley in U.S. Pat. No. 5,072,942, Beckish in U.S. Pat. No. 4,071,251, and Higginson in U.S. Pat. No. 5,467,993 are examples of these types of devices. These path guides assume swings are or should be on one flat plane, which they normally are not, and there is no pull or resistance exercise provided.
The challenges of golf swing training equipment are many and result from real life factors such as that the golf swing is 3-dimensional; golfers' height, limb length, flexibility, swing type and other physical aspects make each swing different; a player's backswing is not on one plane and is rarely on the same plane as the downswing; and by exercising specific groups of muscles on different non-golf apparatus, the golf muscles do not always proportionately remain the same and coordination and feel can suffer.